^^^ That may be, but I've gotten a couple of emails from my own email address and I am NOT on Facebook (and never have been), so they're getting those addresses somewhere else too.

I was recently cleaning out my very (6+ years) old personalised ISP email address and noticed a catalogue from an American clothing store 4 years ago. Standard ad but what got me was this email address is only used by me very selectively and it was addressed to my flatmates sister who is in no way linked to this email address at all. No way at all. I think my ISP sold my email which is why I switched my primary email to somewhere else a long time ago.

It's kinda scary how advertisers can make links and get my email address for someone else across the atlantic. I asked the intended recipient about it and she has never even gone on that American clothing website but used a sister site of theirs. It may have been a stab in the dark but wow they have some good programs to track people.

Oh, yes. Elfqueen divorced her first husband 10 years ago. She resumed her maiden name at that time, and when she married her current husband, changed her name again. Two name changes later, she still gets phone calls and letters from people trying to collect bad debts incurred by her ex-husband's late father.

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~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~It's true. Money can't buy happiness. You have to turn it into books first. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

My son has had his cell phone account for two years. We still get (mostly collections) calls for "Rusty", who is the prior owner.

My boss has had her cell phone for 5+ years and still gets weekly invitations to a baseball game from some group of guys she doesn't know.

I've had my cell phone number for 6+ years now and I still get the occassional collection call for the previous owner. Fortunately, it's only every few months now, as opposed to the 3 or 4 times a week for the first couple of years I had the number.

I was getting daily collection calls for the previous owner of my landline number (she was also constantly late returning movies to Family Video so I was getting those reminder calls as well). I gave it a year and it never slowed down. It was usually a recording, but once I got a real live collector who was kind enough to tell me that this person had used MY number (her old number) on a credit app as recently as the week prior. That's when I called the phone company and got my number changed.

I remembered this one from an old job where we ran tests. We had someone take a test at our centre and when she got her results swore blind we had swapped her test paper with the other person in her test session. Problem was the other person was taking a different test to her and these tests only ran once a year so the papers were sent straight back to the test providers (we didn't batch them and send them monthly or anything similar). I think she thought we'd throw our hands up and say "Oh my goodness, you must be given full marks".

My son has had his cell phone account for two years. We still get (mostly collections) calls for "Rusty", who is the prior owner.

My boss has had her cell phone for 5+ years and still gets weekly invitations to a baseball game from some group of guys she doesn't know.

Your boss should take them up on their offer, be really cheerful and gushing to the guys for inviting her out to the ballgame...considering they don't know her from a bar of soap and keep running commentary up throughout the whole game, complete with asking the guys questions they would have to answer. I'm sure that will be the last time she'll get an invite to join them.

I used to work in a photo lab, back in the pre-digital days, and if someone got a second set of prints at the time of developing, it was 99 cents, much, MUCH cheaper than ordering a set of reprints later. Also the 99 cents applied only to the second set; third, fourth, and fifth sets cost about $3.

If we forgot to print the extra set and the customer came back to complain, we'd take their word for it and just do it at the 99 cent price. Mistakes happen and we were happy to fix our mistakes.

So one day I got an order back that said "forgot 2nd set - please print at 99 cents." I thought, that's funny, I did these pictures yesterday and I could have sworn I did do the extra set, but oh well. The next day, the order came back again, again claiming a second set was missed. Again, I recognized the photos, but doubted my memory enough to do it again (also in the interests of not arguing with a customer).

A few days later, I was working again, and heard a co-worker say, "Hey, I already did these yesterday." Same photos. It was the 2nd time my coworker had seen them, also. So we told the manager and I believe the customer was told that the lab now remembered doing these same photos about 4-5 times.

I guess they saw a different clerk at the counter and thought they wouldn't be recognized, but failed to realize that the people in the lab see the photos.

Ugh. I bought a Groupon for some yoga classes. The vendor ignored all my emails trying to book, then emailed me after the Groupon expired to say, "Sorry but email me the voucher and you can still use it!", then emailed me right back after I did so to say, "Actually you can't use it because it's expired", then used the info from the voucher to fraudulently tell Groupon I had already used the voucher. Groupon refuses to refund or do anything since according to the vendor I've already taken the classes, even though, you know, I have the emails where the vendor flat out says, "We won't honour the voucher tough luck."

Groupon sucks, seriously. Is there nothing one can do if a vendor refuses to honour the deal then lies that they've already done so?

Quoting myself to give an update - after many emails, Groupon have now issued a refund (in the form of Groupon credit which I am perfectly happy with).

Ugh. I bought a Groupon for some yoga classes. The vendor ignored all my emails trying to book, then emailed me after the Groupon expired to say, "Sorry but email me the voucher and you can still use it!", then emailed me right back after I did so to say, "Actually you can't use it because it's expired", then used the info from the voucher to fraudulently tell Groupon I had already used the voucher. Groupon refuses to refund or do anything since according to the vendor I've already taken the classes, even though, you know, I have the emails where the vendor flat out says, "We won't honour the voucher tough luck."

Groupon sucks, seriously. Is there nothing one can do if a vendor refuses to honour the deal then lies that they've already done so?

Quoting myself to give an update - after many emails, Groupon have now issued a refund (in the form of Groupon credit which I am perfectly happy with).

Yay!

So the mobile car detailing outfit that ignored me when I tried to schedule? Now they're offering the same deal on Living Social.

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What part of v_e = \sqrt{\frac{2GM}{r}} don't you understand? It's only rocket science!

"The problem with re-examining your brilliant ideas is that more often than not, you discover they are the intellectual equivalent of saying, 'Hold my beer and watch this!'" - Cindy Couture

The mobile detailing is the first I've had trouble with. Every other one has been smooth sailing.

Now LS has a deal for an event bartending service that I'd like to buy, but first I'd like to chat with the company and find out if they can even do my wedding date. So far, they are not returning calls.

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What part of v_e = \sqrt{\frac{2GM}{r}} don't you understand? It's only rocket science!

"The problem with re-examining your brilliant ideas is that more often than not, you discover they are the intellectual equivalent of saying, 'Hold my beer and watch this!'" - Cindy Couture

I've only had a couple of issues with Groupon after over 3 years using them. Once a restaraunt went out of business before we could redeem it. They verified that they were truly closed but refunded our money promptly. The other 2 problems were caused by businesses that were either running a scam or overwhelmed and didn't know how to deal with the volume they got.

Scam(?) 1: Nail place. The Groupon mentioned no scheduling exclusions or restrictions. Bought it and was subjected to a phone that rang out with no ability to take a message and a website where I had previously scheduled appointments that was now constantly down. After calling on and off for 3 weeks, I finally got through to someone who told me that the Groupon slots were all taken for the next 6 MONTHS and that I could not use it after the expiry date. Groupon gave me a refund and I have such a bad feeling about how thi place handled it that I have not been back. I had previously been and enjoyed their services. Sadly enough, they might have gotten another loyal customer out of this because I was bringing a friend who had moved near me and she was lookign for a good nail shop. Instead they lost a customer and a potential. from what I hear they only redeemed a handful of the Groupons that they actually sold (hundreds sold).

Scam (?) 2: This is pretty firmly a scam. I was looking for a vet closer to our home and bought a groupon for kenneling at a local vet to scope they place out. They were very nice and detailed what pricing was, what was included, told me about the free bath because our dog was staying longer than 3 nights - until I mentioned the groupon. Then there was this upcharge, this fee, the bath would be $10 additional, and so on. Adding it up, the stay plus the cost of the groupon would have been about $5 more than a regular kennel stay. Another refund from groupon.

I have had a few issues with Groupons in the past, but Groupon (and similar types of sites I've tried) has always been fantastic about refunding my money, even when I wasn't expecting them to:

1) farm co-op had a lousy season and couldn't provide fresh veggies; we all got a refund and a voucher toward a future purchase on the site (although it took a while for the farm co-op to own up to the fact that they couldn't deliver on their promises!)

2) play place closed. I had bought a Groupon for five passes, but only got to go there once before they went out of business. Since the owner had already given me my five-visit punchcard in exchange for my Groupon printout, I was hoping to at best get 4/5 of my money back - at worst I was prepared to settle for the difference between the Groupon voucher and a one-day non-discounted pass. When I told Groupon this place had closed, though, they refunded my whole purchase no questions asked.

3) hair salon which had a pretty high-dollar-value Groupon ($75 or $80). I intended to get a massage, but was told it only applied to hair. So I asked if I could pay for multiple cuts at once and schedule two in advance, but apparently the value had to be used on the same day. So I asked if I could bring in a friend and my daughter and we all get our hair cut - oh, sorry, one person per Groupon. So essentially it was only useful for one specific thing on their price list (cut + color + something else I forget), which I didn't want - even a basic haircut cost less than I had paid in the first place! Groupon refunded that one for me as well.

From what I've heard talking to business owners who have done Groupons in the past, it's not really a good deal for them - they have to give at least a 50% discount and they only get half the money Groupon collects, so they're taking at least a 75% cut in income from Groupon users. They also don't get their money from Groupon right away, so they have to provide a few months' worth of goods or services for Groupon users for free before they get reimbursed. I can absolutely understand why some businesses (restaurants in particular) go under after doing Groupon, if they were running too close to the line!

DH just cleaned out a computer for a friend. He had let his anti-virus lapse and his computer had gotten locked down with one of those fake "FBI" ransomware things where they claim you have been downloading illegal/p0rn/bootleg stuff and you must pay $300 fine immediately to get it unlocked. That sucker was hard to get rid of.

I got pron virus bombed by an infected flashdrive. Took out everything and my system had to be wiped and reinstalled. 4 days to get everything back to before. That's the only time anything got through my defences and boy was I pissed at the person who gave me the flashdrive. Nothing like nude gifs of stripping ladies doing their thang on your screen while it disassembles your HD. This flashdrive came from a student at the local high school too who denied he put it on there. It turned out he got it from the school computers/infrastructure :O. That was a really nasty virus. That is why I never transferred stuff between school and home at school. Even the school was unaware it was loose in their system but it had been contained but not wiped. Apparently someONE wasn't doing the software updates so it couldn't activate on the main system but anything plugged in was at risk. Naughty naughty.

I upgraded my firewall asap after that. I didn't know I was vulnerable in that aspect so it did have a good point.

VorSon got that (FBI & the $300 fine) his senior(?) year of high school (I have no idea what he clicked on but he haunts mostly gamer sites) - he backed up what he could to three flash drives and we did a "factory image recovery" with the hard drive being formatted as part of the process. I installed anti-virus before letting him reinstall his back ups. No problems since then - but he's been better about doing the download & install of updates BEFORE starting homework, a game, or whatever process that he doesn't want interrupted with a reboot after the updates download & install.

I'm still trying to convince VorGuy that it is worth it to get the updates because they KEEP his computer from being so vulnerable - HE doesn't want the current settings & such to be changed because sometimes "updates break his settings. I call him my semi-Luddite. He was happy with XP, didn't like Vista much, was happier with 7 (more like XP), and is dreading having to go to 8 "one of these days" when his current computer quits working.

He refuses to try using my Android tablet at all.....

My mother fell in love with my Linux ereader to the point that I gave her one for her birthday! (She may have mooched the use while visiting - but it made birthday shopping that year extremely easy......)

I've always found Groupon to be good with refunds, although I've only needed to do that twice.

The first was a salon who had changed location without telling Groupon or updating their website. I arrived to find a closed building and nobody answering their phone.

The second was a company who sent out packs of gourmet meat. They were supposed to email me the day before delivery, so I scheduled it for a week DH had off work. On the Wednesday I called them to find out when it was due, only to be told it had been delivered on the Tuesday. They chased their delivery contractor - they had left it with a neighbour, hadn't left us a card, had no clue which number they had left it at, and had only an illegible signature. All the company could get out of them was that it was a residential area. Gee, really?

We eventually tracked it down a week later, by which time it had been sitting for seven days in somebody's front room. Unsurprisingly, it went in our front door and straight out to the backyard bin.